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November Tatler UK 2014

Thanks Tatler for this month’s most amazing spread! No less than eight pages!

Buy your copy of the limited edition VENUS now!

“Quartet’s latest photographic volume, Venus, is something of a treasure; beautifully produced with that elegance which will endure, notwithstanding the trends of the day.

The black and white images of female nudity set against backgrounds of exquisite art and shot with a discerning eye prove time and again that the feminine form in a proper environment is not only alluring, but has the kind of  impact that defies any descriptive lexicon of words we choose to use.

The concept of the book is brilliantly executed, giving the reader a visual bonanza rarely experienced elsewhere. The book’s defused eroticism creates an art form which will dazzle all those who worship the glorious feminine structure of young women, directly contrasted in a setting embellished with artefacts by great artists from a different generation.

The master of ceremonies is the author/photographer Grace Vane Percy whose touch is so impressive and bereft of any pretentions. Her women are portrayed in their natural state, with their pubic hair so tastefully shown to put paid to any notion that such exposure is best concealed.

Grace truly epitomises her subject, with her long and shapely form, and revealing an irresistible capacity to understand and appreciate the sexual frisson that her photography imbibes. If she herself were in a reversal of roles, she could be even more stunning than her most vivacious models. And what a pity she isn’t…

This magnificent book is a Christmas gem. To miss it would be a cardinal sin that no one should ever wish to commit, so hurry along and order your copy now. Be amongst the first to celebrate its acquisition!”

Naim Attallah

Chairman, Quartet Books

Full page teaser in this month’s Tatler ahead of next month’s feature! Thanks @Tatleruk team!

Tatler October 2014

Grace Vane Percy has no problem getting people to go naked for her. In fact, she’s virtually fighting them off. She’s the ‘Nude Snapper’ to go to if you want to throw caution to the wind – and bare all. “Yes, I photograph ladies in the nude,” laughs Grace, “but it’s always an artistic portrait  – it’s certainly not ‘glamour’ modelling – it’s a fine art thing.” And many of those who peel off their clothes do so to have their naked self hanging up on a wall at home. “It’s about female beauty,” she continues,  “and I photograph more for women. Most often it’s a gift from a wife to a husband.”

In her trade you expect your subjects to come in all shapes and sizes – and Vane-Percy is unshockable. One client walked into her studio four weeks after serious plastic surgery. “She had an enormous scar – really nasty.” But mostly it’s well-heeled professionals pitching up and stripping off. “Many of these women spend their own money on flashing their flesh. They’ve got the car, the bag, the shoes and now they want to bare-all. I don’t tend to get trophy wives sent in by their husbands.”

Getting ready to head to the Nude Snapper’s studio is all part of the process too. Grace’s subjects have to get down to fully exfoliating and moisturising their entire bodies the night before. Then the next day – when heading off to see her – her clients have to go sans-bra and commando. “So they’re walking along down the Kings Road and thinking to themselves ‘I’m not wearing any underwear. ’ When they turn up they’re already in a different mindset. Already committed to doing it.”

“I have everything set up,” continues Grace, “But I always leave a little something to do so I don’t have to stand there and go, ‘Drop it.’ I just ask them to take up a position on the cloth.  It’s better to just get on with it quickly.

After a year at St Martin’s, followed by 2001 spent life-drawing in Florence, it all kicked off the year she got back from Italy. Grace shot a nude picture for a friend from university who was putting on a play. Then was asked by a woman who had seen a baby portrait she’d done to shoot her naked. And it just snow-balled. She’s now helped expose 80 women to expose themselves.
While her parents – interior designer Christopher, and Lady Linda Vane Percy, are cool with her job, it’s definitely not something any of her relations would necessarily have got stuck into. Granny – the Countess of Wilton – was one of the four Yarde-Buller sisters (one married Prince Ali Khan, one Earl Cadogan and the other the Duke of Bedford) although her great-granny was a ‘Gaiety Girl’ who became Duchess of Leinster. It’s all a far cry from what the nuns at the Catholic prep school she went to, followed by Oakham, then Cambridge, would have expected. But perhaps it’s her background – she grew up between Mayfair and the family pad, Island Hall, outside Cambridge – all part of her secret and gentle charm that puts her subjects at ease.

But why do they want to do it? “Often it’s because they have been through some kind of life changing experience. Or they’ve just divorced. Or been on a massive diet. Or simply because they’ve turned a certain age.” Age also seems to be a defining factor; “I think that as women get older they get more confident and carefree. When you are in your 20s – although you had a better figure – you just don’t have the right mind set to do it.” Going through the process with Grace is also a sort of expulsion of all thoughts of body hate; an American-style of learning to love oneself. That once they’ve done the deed – taken their clothes off and spent time talking to Grace about what they don’t like about their bodies – they’ve been through a kind of therapy. “The thing about the body is that its errors actually make it whole; that when you’re naked as an object, as you were designed, everything fits into place.” And Grace, one feels, should know.